Author: Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP

The image that has drawn me in my ministry is Touching the Sunrise. I believe each person, no matter where they are and what they have lived, is a temple of the Trinity and can, indeed, taste the presence of God within. You can find resources for healing and prayer and follow me at touchingthesunrise.com.

The Gift of Knowledge – What infuriates me….

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I sat in the California sun, across from a friend, with anger raging through my heart. This precious friend of mine had shared something she had been told a teacher in religious education class. Here 40 years later she struggled daily, crippled with fears and anxieties about God’s harsh judgment of her.

The son of another close friend is beginning the same journey. Thoughts of suicide every day. Buried under the ravages of OCD and scrupulosity. The “wisdom” of a confessor in those delicate early years of a conscious relationship with God had resulted in this. I think of Fr. Hammond, our pastor in the parish in which I grew up. Older, wiser, an everyday gentle presence among us in the school and in the confessional. Now, gone to heaven, he is still in my grateful thoughts.

I can’t tell you the number of people who have unconsciously built their spiritual lives around the counsel of a spiritual person or minister who, no doubt, struggled with their own relationship with God. It breaks my heart when someone tells me, for example, that  Father So-and-So told them they were going to hell because of some struggle they have. Even more, it infuriates me, because I have seen the twisted spiritual lives of those who have believed this nonsense.

Last night, I received an email from a mother asking for words of advice for her son, a young man with a failed business venture, failed relationships, lots of regret, and sunk in depression as black as midnight. Could I give her words of advice for him. I closed my computer. What were the magic words? I realized I did not know them. I was inadequate of myself. Insufficient. Poor. Afraid…. I went to bed and slept on it. I needed the Holy Spirit and his gift of knowledge.

The gift of knowledge is a supernatural habit by which we, under the action of the Holy Spirit, judge rightly concerning created things as related to eternal life and Christian perfection. It is not a question of philosophical or psychological knowledge, which gives a certain knowledge of things we can deduce by natural reason. It isn’t even a question of theological knowledge. It is, according to Jordan Aumann in Spiritual Theology, a question of a supernatural knowledge or “divine instinct” that comes from a special illumination of the Holy Spirit. Under the influence of this superior impulse and higher light we are able to judge rightly concerning created things in relation to their supernatural end.

Under the influence of knowledge activated by the Holy Spirit a person who is untrained theologically may be aware whether or not a maxim, or counsel, or devotion is in accord with the faith or opposed to it. I remember some women coming into our Pauline Books and Media Center in Metairie over twenty years ago looking for candles for the imminent three days of darkness that had been announced on a Catholic TV station. Observing the fear that motivated their request as they sought to ward off the impending doom, I steered them toward the Divine Mercy. Jesus never told us in the Gospels to be afraid. In fact, he told us NOT to be afraid. I don’t claim I was motivated by the gift of knowledge, but the Holy Spirit helped all of us see that this counsel given on the show they had watched was not in accord with the Gospels, and they left with greater peace and a means of spiritual devotion that was new to them.

It is by the gift of knowledge that preachers, confessors, ministers, teachers, spiritual directors, superiors, parents know what they ought to say to meet the spiritual needs of the persons before them. Saint Catherine of Siena once offered at the abbot’s invitation an impromptu spiritual conference in a monastery she had never been in before. Afterwards, the abbot told one of her companions that Catherine could not have offered a better conference if he had explained to her the spiritual journeys and struggles of each one. It was the gift of knowledge that had inspired her words to perfectly respond to the needs of each soul before her.

The gift of knowledge also teaches us how to use created things in a holy way. The contemplation of nature, of people, of events, of all the gifts of God should raise us to praise God, to go beyond them to adore the glory of God visible through them.

Here are two ways that you can prepare the ground, so to speak, for the activation by the Spirit of the gift of knowledge:

  • Pause a bit before responding. Email and texting have trained us to respond as quickly as possible to others. Try doing as St Francis de Sales who bowed his head in a conversation for a few moments of silence before responding, begging the Holy Spirit to replace your thoughts with divine thoughts, your understanding of the situation or person with the wisdom of God who loves and cares for them. And if you are receiving another’s counsel–or even reading it in a book or hearing it in a sermon–pause long enough to ask the Spirit to guide you in listening so that you take in what is meant for you and let go of what is not. Don’t be afraid, especially when receiving advice that upsets you or goes counter to the Gospel, to “get a second opinion.”
  • Cultivate a simple glance that raises itself to God whenever it looks upon created things. Let nature, people, events cause you to raise your heart in prayer, gratitude, petition, and praise.

Prayer

May you, O Holy Spirit, fill me with the gift of knowledge so that you can use me to speak your words to others, to bless others with advice that is not mine but yours. I am so poor. I can never know for certain what you want me to say, but from this moment I beg you to replace my thoughts with your thoughts, my words with your words, my actions with your actions. I beg you to use me!

To be Jesus’ disciple is an immeasurable privilege (Matthew 23:1-12)

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Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to his disciples, saying, “The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens [hard to carry] and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them. All their works are performed to be seen. They widen their phylacteries and lengthen their tassels. They love places of honor at banquets, seats of honor in synagogues, greetings in marketplaces, and the salutation ‘Rabbi.’ As for you, do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called ‘Master’; you have but one master, the Messiah. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Matthew 23:1-12).

In this Gospel, Jesus sets up two different models of religious observance, that of the Pharisees and that of the disciple of Christ.

The Pharisees were an ancient Jewish group of laymen and scribes concerned with the purity of the Jewish people and a clear Jewish identity in everyday life. They were interpreters of the Law, teachers, masters, and mentors of the spiritual life. They had something to say, to teach, to enforce. Those who followed the Pharisees were required to carry out the commands of the law according to the Pharisees’ interpretation. Hence Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading: “They tie up heavy burdens hard to carry and lay them on people’s shoulders.”

Jesus’ group of disciples, on the other hand, were invited by him to receive the revelation of the Father’s love and will. They were to esteem themselves blessed when their lives bore the wounds of Christ: rejection, the cross, poverty, persecution, martyrdom. They were invited to love each other and to give their lives for one another, and even to give their lives for their enemies, as Christ did for us. The disciple was not the master because it was only Jesus who taught. “I speak only what I hear from my Father” (cf John 12:49).

In today’s Gospel, Jesus draws clear distinctions between the Pharisees and those who would be his disciples:

  1. The Pharisees were a privileged group in Israel and are depicted here acting in isolation as teachers, seeking honors and deference from others, visibility, and prominence. Jesus addresses his disciples as members of a community. “There is only one master, the Christ.” They were all brothers and sisters.
  2. The Pharisees tried to attract disciples by stressing how they had attained a greater purity than the rest of the Israelites. Jesus attracted followers by being with those who were considered impure and not worthy: sinners, tax collectors, women.
  3. As the Pharisees sought honors the disciples of Jesus were to seek to be servants, last, humble.
  4. The interpretation of the Torah imposed on others by the Pharisees was hard to carry. Jesus calls it a “heavy burden” laid on people’s shoulders. The followers of Jesus are yoked with Jesus and take up his teaching which is an easy load to bear.
  5. As a Pharisee, one could attain status and honor. To be called Jesus’ disciple is an immeasurable privilege one could never merit.

Jesus told his disciples to observe what the Pharisees told them to do but not to follow their example. Jesus, as a true Master, taught his own followers both by word and example. The Son of God himself was servant before he asked his disciples to serve one another. As St. Paul wrote to the Philippians:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross! (Phil 2:5-8)

Friends, brothers and sisters, fellow disciples, there is only one Master, the Christ. Let us follow him, learn from him, take up his teaching which is an easy load to bear, and find rest in him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Mt. 11:28-30).

Praying with this passage of Scripture

Lectio Divina is a way of listening to God as he speaks in his Word. It is a practice of communicating with God through Scripture and attending to God’s presence and what he wishes to tell us. In this slow and prayerful reading of the Word of God, we allow ourselves to be transformed by the Spirit who forms us into the image of Christ.
There are four movement in Lectio Divina: Read (lectio), Meditate (meditation), Pray (oratio), Contemplate (contemplation).

Begin by finding a still space to pray. Breathe deeply and become quieter within. Abandon any agenda, worries or thoughts you bring to this prayer and entrust these things to the merciful care of God. Ask for the grace to be receptive to what God will speak to you through this Scripture reading. Grant me, Jesus Divine Master, to be able to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God and your unfathomable riches. Grant that your word penetrate my soul; guide my steps, and brighten my way till the day dawns and darkness dissipates, you who live and reign forever and ever Amen.

Read (lectio)
Begin by slowly and meditatively reading your Scripture passage out loud. Listen for a particular word or phrase that speaks to you at this moment and sit with it for a time.

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

“Everything they do is done for people to see: They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long; they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; they love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and to be called ‘Rabbi’ by others.

“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Meditate (meditatio) – Read the same passage a second time. As you re-engage the text, let the word or phrase that stood out become your invitation to speak from your heart with God who wishes to share his heart with you. Allow this word or phrase to wash over you and permeate your thoughts and feelings. You may wish to repeat this phrase quietly and gently for a period of time.

Pray (oratio) – Read the text a third time. Listen for what God is saying to you. Speak heart to heart with God. Notice the feelings that this conversation with God raises up within you. Share with God what you notice about your response to this conversation. You may wish to return to repeating the phrase quietly and gently, allowing it to permeate you more and more deeply.

Contemplate (contemplatio)
Read the text a final time. Now be still and rest in God’s embrace. Ask God to give you a gift to take with you from this prayer. You might ask God if he is inviting you to do some action, for instance, make some change in your thoughts, attitudes or reactions, in the way you speak or how you treat others. Thank God for this gift and invitation as you conclude your prayer.

The Gift of Fortitude – Maximilian Kolbe Martyr of Charity

Published on by Sr. Kathryn J Hermes, FSP2 Comments

In the last days of July in 1941 in Block 12 at Auschwitz, Germany, during World War II, a prisoner escaped. When he was not found after a thorough search, the other men of Block 12 were led out before commandment Karl Fritsch. The men trembled in fear. They knew the rule. If someone escaped, ten men would die as a consequence.

“The fugitive has not been found!” the commandant Karl Fritsch screamed. “You will all pay for this. Ten of you will be locked in the starvation bunker without food or water until they die.”

The ten were selected, including Franciszek Gajowniczek, who sobbed, “My poor wife! My poor children! What will they do?”

Quietly, a man with a long beard broke rank and stepped forward. He silently took off his cap and said, “I am a Catholic priest. Let me take his place. I am old. He has a wife and children.”

Astounded, the Nazi commandant asked, “What does this Polish pig want?”

Father Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated, “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place, because he has a wife and children.” Amazingly, Fritsch granted Kolbe’s request. Franciszek Gajowniczek was returned to the ranks, and the priest took his place.

Gajowniczek later recalled: “I could only thank him with my eyes. I was stunned and could hardly grasp what was going on. The immensity of it: I, the condemned, am to live and someone else willingly and voluntarily offers his life for me – a stranger. Is this some dream?” (http://auschwitz.dk/Kolbe.htm)

Father Kolbe was thrown down the stairs of Building 13 along with the other victims and left there to starve. As the men grew weaker from starvation, Maximilian Kolbe encouraged them by saying prayers, singing psalms, and offering meditations on the Passion of Christ. After two weeks, the cell was needed for more victims, and the camp executioner, a criminal called Bock, came in and injected a lethal dose of carbolic acid into the left arm of each of the four dying men. Kolbe was the only one still fully conscious and with a prayer on his lips, he raised his arm for the executioner. On August 14, 1941 at the age of forty-seven years, Maximilian Kolbe died, a martyr of charity.

Maximilian Kolbe’s act of offering his own life was truly heroic, and certainly not a choice many would make. In the history of Auschwitz no one before Kolbe and no one after is known to have done the same. To offer one’s life for another is not the expression of a universally binding moral norm. Every man standing there that day was not obliged by any law to do what Maximilian did. However, Maximilian Kolbe felt the Holy Spirit at work within him, urging him to give his life for another as Jesus had. His action expressed who he was as a Catholic priest as well as who Christ was for him. By remaining safely in line that day, breathing a sigh of relief that he had not been chosen for the starvation bunker, Kolbe would have broken no commandment. Nevertheless, the Holy Spirit was asking him an extraordinary act of charity and Kolbe said yes.

The gift of fortitude is a special supernatural habit by which the Holy Spirit strengthens the soul for the practice of virtue, with the energy and confidence of overcoming all difficulties may arise. It is an instinctive interior impulse that proceeds directly from the Holy Spirit by which we practice virtue so that with perseverance these acts will spring from the soul with energy, promptness, and perseverance. I know how my energy and promptness in practicing at least some of the virtues comes and goes depending on who is asking and how I’m feeling that day and how much effort it’s going to take and what I’d rather be doing. For those who practice virtues continually with perfection, this perseverance requires the active operation of the gift of fortitude.

Pope Francis has said that for most of us the gift of fortitude will be exercised in our patient pursuit of holiness in the circumstances of our daily lives. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to list the difficulties that plague people’s daily lives. I am forever in awe of people who have been dealt a difficult “deck of cards” and yet live with a joy and selflessness I can only hope one day to attain. Through the gift of fortitude we receive the strength to do God’s will in spite of our own natural weakness and limitations. The Holy Spirit through this gift helps us to overcome our weakness and confers an extraordinary readiness to undergo trials for love of God or in fulfillment of the divine will.

The gift of fortitude brings to those who have it a dauntless spirit of resolution, firmness of mind, and indomitable will to persevere with a quiet faith in God’s providence that overcomes all obstacles:

  • It makes us courageously willing to stand up for what is right in the sight of God even when we will face rejection, abuse, persecution, physical harm and death in doing so. Think of St Thomas More.
  • It gives us unusual courage in bearing difficulties even for many years. Think of St Gemma Galgani.
  • It gives us steadiness of mind and firmness of spirit in bringing arduous tasks to completion. Think of St John Paul II.
  • It helps us persevere in a lifetime of fidelity to our vocation despite heavy trials or disappointments sent by God. Think of St Theresa of Calcutta.
  • It also brings courage to persist in the practice of virtue despite trials, illness, persecution or external failure. Think of St Joan of Arc.

Here are two habits you can develop that will strengthen the gift of fortitude.

  • Daily throw yourself into your duties and difficulties with trust in God, perseverance, and a joyful determination to complete them with as much love as you can. When we practice fortitude on a daily level, we can be sure that the Holy Spirit will assist us when only the gift of fortitude will help us be faithful disciples of Jesus.
  • None of us escapes the cross. Sometimes it is lighter than at others. We also bear the burdens of others as they accept the crosses they carry in life. Our hearts can complain about these seeming obstacles to happiness and freedom. We can demand the cross be taken from us. Here the familiar saying comes to mind: Do not ask that the cross be removed from you but that you be given the strength to bear it. As we embrace the smaller crosses in our life, the Holy Spirit will give us the grace of the gift of fortitude, giving us the energy and joy to walk through life with perseverance and greatness of soul.

Prayer

O Holy Spirit! I too have been given a mission, a mission that unfolds each day in your requests for my courageous yes to all you ask of me, to all you give me. Make me faithful in the small things so that when the greater moments of decision come to me I will be ready to respond always, “Yes.”

God Knows What He is About

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“God is in control and has a reason for everything, even if we don’t see it right now.”

I must confess this was at one time the way I made dealt with suffering in my life and it still is. How I made sense of life in my twenties and how I make sense of it in my sixties, however, is very different.

What has made that difference? I guess there have been many things, but the game changer has been, surprisingly, a tiny three-chapter book found in the Old Testament. The book of Ruth.

During a time of famine, Naomi and her husband Elimelek and her two sons left Bethlehem and went to live in Moab. There her two sons married the Moabite women Ruth and Orpah. Eventually Elimelek and her sons died. Hearing that there no longer was famine in Judah, Naomi determined to return to Bethlehem.

Naomi says these arresting words to Ruth and Orpah as she returns, “The Lord’s hand has turned against me!” (v 11) She acknowledges her bitterness and the dismal future that awaits her without any sons to care for her.

At the same time, earlier in her conversation she says to her daughters-in-law who were accompanying her back to Judah, “May the Lord show you kindness, as you have shown kindness to your dead husbands and to me. May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband” (v 8, 9).

Naomi could acknowledge her bitterness, state exactly what she felt God was “doing to her,” and in the same breath call upon the Lord to bless others.

With all that Naomi had suffered and through all the hopelessness that awaited her she still thought of others and reached out to them in love.

With all that she had suffered and through all the hopelessness that awaited her she still thought of others and reached out to them in love. She was not swallowed up in bitterness.

Regardless of how she believed God was treating her, she still prayed.

Naomi isn’t one of the biblical heroes like Abraham or Moses or King David or Peter or Paul. She is just an ordinary woman with an ordinary life doing the next best thing. She lives simply in the delicate and beautiful web of salvation that is being spun through God’s providence in all the world. Everyday decisions are used by God as, unbeknownst to her, he accomplishes the mystery of salvation, and her tender story sets the stage for events of biblical proportions.

Here’s what I learned from Naomi:

  • God has a plan and nothing can stop that plan. God’s plan is much larger than our own individual lives, and yet our personal lives are of immense importance in the larger plan.
  • Sometimes it is nice to do a discernment about God’s will. But most of the time, we, like Naomi, only have the possibility of doing the next right thing, the next act of love for someone else. Each of those seemingly insignificant decisions are part of the unfolding of God’s providence for the coming of the Kingdom. Our life is of immense value.
  • Love is really important.
  • I don’t know the plan, but God does.
  • Keep praying. Keep believing. Keep talking. Keep loving.

Daily living is the theater of God’s glory. Though we don’t know the story line entirely, we do know that the Author of Salvation uses everything to bring the world to its final end, communion with God.

Naomi had no way of knowing that through all the micro-decisions of her life, the seeming failure, the bitterness and the determination, her daughter-in-law Ruth would end up being named in the genealogy of Jesus as the great-grandmother of King David (Mt. 1:5-6).

God knows what he is about and that is enough for me.

The Gift of Counsel – A new season of your life…

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“Get ready, Kathryn. A new season of your life is about to begin….” I heard those words about five years ago when I took refuge in the chapel after a particularly difficult experience. Actually, it wasn’t the first time I had heard those words whispered in my heart by God or experienced a changing season of life.

Twenty years ago, to identify one of these transition periods, everything was going wrong in my work in the mission, everything blocked by another I was working with. For a year I seemed to be treading water…or more accurately I was sinking. However, I remember speaking with my spiritual director at the time saying to my surprise, that as useless and counterproductive as the experience was, I also had a sense that everything was exactly as it should be. I couldn’t explain it. It made no sense. But a part of me was crying out to God that he certainly would do much better in evangelizing the world if the situation were different. Another part of me sank beneath his mighty hand and blessed him for my undoing.

Remember a time when circumstances left you confused, deflated, angry, unsure of the best way forward? It takes a lot of prudence to reason out the best steps to take, which options to choose, the most effective words you could say…. Without realizing, we could make these decisions based on what is fair, or what we feel, or what we want for ourselves. When we are hurt we can strike out at another even as we think we are responding virtuously.

When we need more than our own devices to understand what is happening in particular events in our life or judgments we need to make, it is the Holy Spirit’s gift of counsel that comes to our assistance. The gift of counsel operates under the impulse of the Holy Spirit, not according to what makes the most sense or is the most comfortable or gives us the most pleasure. The Holy Spirit can lead us to do or say or desire things for which our reason could never explain. Thus, even though the surface of the situation would seem to warrant an angry response that would set things straight for the improvement of the mission, there was a voice within me that said, “Get ready, a new season of your life is about to begin.” A season of contradiction and newness and loss and surprising transformation. A good season….

Sometimes a judgment is required that is beyond us at the time. Perhaps we don’t know how to combine firmness with mercy or there seems no way for us to guard a secret and at the same time meet the obligation of telling the truth. We might be responsible for other people and it is often difficult to know what is best for them. At times we don’t have time for sufficient research or reflection before a decision must be made. It is at times such as these that we want our decision to be the result of the operation of the gift of counsel.

So what habits in daily life will help us grow in responsiveness to the voice of the Spirit who is the Guest of our soul? Incorporate these two qualities of heart and you will prepare your soul for the more intense activation of the gift of counsel in your life:

  • Develop the habit of speaking directly to the Holy Spirit, telling him that you don’t know what to do, which option is best, how to most effectively address another or a situation. And then beg the Holy Spirit for light and guidance. Begin to admit that despite every good intention and all our talents and gifts, in some circumstances only the Holy Spirit can bestow on us the wisdom we need to decide aright. We cannot snap our fingers for the Spirit’s guidance. We often will need to wait upon the Lord with patience and humility.
  • Observe your experience when you are attached to your own judgments. St. John of the Cross in his Spiritual Maxims advises us: “Renounce your desires and you shall find that which your heart desires. How do you know if what you desire is according to God?” Notice how you experience is different when you act under the impulse of the Spirit. What is different? What are signs that tip you off that you are following your own judgments, and signs that indicate that you are obeying the Holy Spirit, moved by the gift of counsel? These can help you correct your path mid-stream so that you more frequently are seeking to please the Spirit.

Prayer

O Holy Spirit, I adore you present in my soul. I need you. Guide me. Show me the way to please the Father. Counsel me. Give me a wisdom beyond what I can figure out on my own. I promise to obey you. Only let me understand your will. Amen.